


I Fear No Monsters

by besidemethewholedamntime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Kind of a Happy Ending, Love, Swear Word, angsty, it's not graphic at all, like it just mentions it, mention of being sick, post-post-Framework, set a few hours after Fitz is rescued, since post-Framework disappointed me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 01:39:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10821042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: In which Fitz and Simmons have a comforting moment alone after Fitz is rescued from AIDA's clutches.





	I Fear No Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> The summary pretty much says it all! The title is from Nikita Gill as is the ending poem. The quote at the start is from Caitlyn Siehl. I hope you enjoy and please leave kudos and comments if you feel inclined to do so :-)  
> Thank you!

_“When is a monster not a monster?"_

_"Oh, when you love it.”_

 

She rubs his back silently while he vomits.

She doesn’t say anything because nothing she could say would make any of it any better. She could say _it’s not your fault_ or _it wasn’t you_ or _none of it was real_ but she knows that those sentiments would fall on ears unwilling to listen. Alternatively, she could say _the blame lies with you_ but she knows that’s _exactly_ what he wants to hear. She’ll stand with him at the edge of the cliff, but no way will she give him the encouragement he needs to jump off it.

He’s only been back mere hours. This is what she reminds herself. He’s only been back hours and immediately after he’d been checked out by the medical team he had locked himself away in their room and had refused to come out, not even bothering to answer her persistent knocks at the door after the second hour. Eventually, after hour four, she’d decided enough was enough and unlocked the door only to find the bathroom door locked. Heart beating faster than she thought possible, she’d managed to unlock that door too only to find him kneeling on the floor by the toilet, hands gripping the bowl and shivering so hard his teeth were chattering.

Her heart hurts for Fitz, it really does. AIDA had changed him the most of all, and not just shallowly but deep to his core. While everybody else had retained the same characteristics, Fitz had had his fundamental values and beliefs changed and manipulated to the core and then rerouted towards other, more evil purposes. He’s having to deal with almost two separate lives combined into one and Jemma’s really unsure of how to help him, doubtful if she’ll be enough to get him through it this time.

“J...Jemma, g...g-go. J…Just g-go.” His small voice cuts through her reverie. He shivers so violently that she stops her ministrations just long enough to grab the blanket that adorns the bottom of the bed and wrap it around him. He clings to it with one hand, the other still clutching the cool porcelain. He clutches it so tightly that his hand is white from the effort.

“No.” The roughness of her own voice surprises her.

“It-it’s fine. G-go.” Another wave of nausea overtakes him and she hands him some tissue with which to wipe his mouth, all the while still rubbing his back.

“I’m not leaving you here like this. That’s ridiculous.”

He looks at her for a second then, _really_ looks at her and goes to say something before nausea overtakes him again. This time she hands him a glass of water. His hands shake so badly that half of it spills on the white-tiled floor and down his front as he drinks. She still just keeps on rubbing his back, slowly and softly.

“I’m so-” he goes to say but she holds a hand up to stop him.

“I know,” she says softly, giving him a weak smile. She’s had enough of apologies. Her head is thick with so many apologies that she feels like she’s drowning in them. If she opens her mouth and starts to apologise the floodgates will open and they’ll come spilling off her tongue so easily she won’t know what she’s apologising for anymore. It’s too little, it’s too late. It’s gone too far. Apologies won’t fix what’s broken anymore.

“I… I d-don’t know what-t I am any-ny more,” he mumbles, his head still mostly in the toilet bowl.

“You’re human,” she whispers, and the hand rubbing his back stalls only for a moment. She takes a deep, shaky breath. “You’re human.” The repetition is mostly for her own benefit. An assurance, if you will.

“I think I’m a m-monster,” he whispers, horrified and begins retching once again. His small, confused voice brings tears to her eyes and in her head, she curses Radcliffe and the Darkhold and AIDA to eternal damnation.  

“You’re Fitz,” she offers because it’s all she can. “And Fitz,” the sureness in her voice surprises even herself, “is no monster.”

He turns to face her again. How white his face is, how pale. How young and scared he looks. Is this what he looked like as a child, waking up from a nightmare, she wonders? Is this what he had to endure as a child? Her heart hurts for a young Fitz waking up from a nightmare only to have to go on living in one. A nightmare in which is father hurt him and left him. She chokes down her tears and continues slowly rubbing his back.

The shaking has subsided a little and he reaches for another piece of tissue to wipe his mouth.   _Monsters wouldn’t do that!_ She wants to shake him and make him believe what she does. _Monsters aren’t sick for crimes they committed. Monsters wouldn’t be so upset over what happened in a digital world full of ones and zeroes. Monsters wouldn’t try and blame themselves for someone else’s actions. Monsters would use a scapegoat, not offer themselves as one._ She wants to cry it from the rooftops. _A monster wouldn’t do everything for me that you’ve done for me._ She wants to scream it at him. _A monster wouldn’t love me like you!_

She wants to hold him and never let him go. She wants to cry with him and promise him that she’ll be with him the whole damn time, that she won’t leave him for even a second. She wants to show him that _The Doctor_ may have been a monster, and _Leopold Fitz_ may have been a misled man, but _Fitz_ is good and kind and one of those people that you just _have_ to hold on to and never let go because they are everything. She wants to kiss him and tell him that she loves him, that she’ll always love him, and that it would take a lot more than a magical book, a disillusioned scientist and a fucking psychotic robot to stop her.

Instead, she does none of those things and just continues to rub his back in slow, comforting circles.

 

_“How do you love someone who is broken?_

_Gently, lay your hands on their soul like a whisper_

_and find the places in which they are broken._

_Then love them until these fractured places_

_become crevices, and the crevices become_

_thin, white scars that they only just barely remember_


End file.
